Hello everyone,

I have the following problem (Zemax 22.3):

• I generated a binary source file (20000 rays - number does not really matter) with a specfic order of rays (sdf file with wavelength and flux)
• I build a dummy non-sequential system consisting of the source file (randomization turned off) and a dummy surface (complexity and structure of the system does not matter as well)
• After tracing the rays and looking into the ray database viewer the order of the rays is actually not as defined in the ray file, as I expected (I checked if the order in the ray file is correct with: Python Reading Writing Binary Files (ZRD, ZBF, DAT, SDF) | Zemax Community)
• While there are correctly ordered sub-batches of rays in the zrd file, the position and size (number of rays) of the batches depends on the settings in the System Explorer → Non-Sequential. Changing e.g. Maximum Intersections per Ray, etc leads to a different order/size of the batches in the ray database viewer. My expectation was that these settings should not have an influence on the order in the zrd file, as the maximum intersection, etc. of the dummy system are below the minimum settings

Since the randomization option of the source file object was turned off, I expected the same order of the rays in the zrd as defined in the source filed, which is obiously not the case. I also did not expect the System Explorer → Non-Sequential options to have an influence on the order of the rays in the zrd file, as the number of intersections/segements in my dummy system is lower than the minimum possible setting.

Is there a way of keeping the ray order of the source file without manually sorting the zrd file?